


To Forget is to Distract

by Bounteous



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Oh, Smut, Young Arthur, almost forgot, and some trauma-related sex, and then it's some comfort, it starts off angsty af, look - Freeform, then it gets worse for a few paragraphs, then it's emotional instability, then it's violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 08:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bounteous/pseuds/Bounteous
Summary: Perhaps you're not cut out for gang life. Perhaps Arthur's a pushover sometimes. Perhaps distraction is necessary.





	To Forget is to Distract

If Dutch Van de Linde hadn’t found you, you think you might’ve still made it. Battling tooth and nail far more ferociously, perhaps, but you most certainly wouldn’t have so readily given your situation the upper hand. But these are simply thoughts—past remembrances in the form of faint shadows in the night that you’ll never really rid of.

They stomp and scream on the roof of the adobe, peek through the cracks in the stucco, slither in through the open windows, choke you in your sleep until you’re crying out in unabating agony. Fitful sleep leaves you in a constant state of silent distress, although, either by learned behavior or a wordless agreement, they leave your problems alone. ‘They’ being this small gang you’ve found yourself apart of for almost a year now.

Eighteen then, nineteen now, you feel as if you’ve grown up quite tremendously in such a short amount of time. Learning the ins and outs of a range of guns, how to track and hunt, the best times for catching the largest fish, and, by the insistence of Hosea and Bessie, how to write despite already knowing how to read because, for a while there, you failed to understand what the difference really was. 

Now, at least, when you return to society from wherever this new family of yours is holding up, people fail to give you a second glance even when it matters most. And when it matters most is always because now you’ve gained a new habit of peak observation—scoping out the townspeople, memorizing closing/opening times and where things are placed, integrating your completely normal self within their community that, by the time they realize they’ve been duped, you’re nigh already on the next town over giving cash to those who need it most.

Your part comes into play as the petty thief and pickpocket you used to be. Perhaps people think you’re clumsy, ignorant to your having stolen ten dollars from their pockets. Or, perhaps, you use some of that theatricality Hosea taught you and lure stupid men into a false sense of chivalry, thinking they’re oh-so-honorable helping a fallen young lady that their missing watches and rings are the last things on their pea-sized brains. 

However, such work doesn’t come without its dangers. Annabelle, Bessie, and Ms. Grimshaw have all three severely warned you about men getting handsy. Getting caught is a problem, of course, but getting caught and being a lady? Men think it’s a damn free-for-all. Because, if you got caught in the first place, clearly you’re far too stupid to escape their sexual advances. Although, with you being so young, Dutch and Hosea, if they can’t themselves, always remind Arthur to keep you in sight.

At first, it was rightly annoying. You could handle yourself just fine, you’d thought you’d proven that on multiple occasions. But then there was that one time. That one goddamn time when you’d followed a man down an alley and were so intent on snatching his satchel that you hadn’t realized another had been following you the whole time. 

Your man had rounded the corner, but before you could the other had you against the brick and a dirty hand over your mouth to quell your shout of surprise. You can’t exactly remember what he said, far too frightened and wanting to forget this memory, but his hand crawling up your thigh replaced by the ear-piercing sound of his belt buckle had you thrashing like those pronghorn caught in a cougar’s jaws.

Then that sound was replaced with another ear-piercing one, one you’d wished made you deaf so you didn’t have to hear your choked sobs spilling from your mouth as the man jolted to the side with a bullet in his head. You slumped against the brick, petrified tears mixing with the splattered blood across your face, jumping when another man’s hands grabbed your shoulders, pulling your shaking form against his chest.

It was Arthur, you realized with cosmic relief, and you clung to him, afraid of the entire world and finding the only solace in him as he heaved you into his arms, taking you away from reality. 

You wouldn’t talk to anyone that wasn’t him that night when he’d brought you back to camp. He’d explained the situation to Dutch and Hosea as Annabelle washed your face clean of any reminders, but you’d reached out a desperate hand, grasping his coattail when he’d tried to walk away. The fear in your eyes broke him, in a way, so he’d kept your hand in his as he retold a story you’d vowed never to speak of again. 

Arthur is only a year older than you at twenty, but you hadn’t really interacted much with him until after that incident. Now you two are closer than what should be called appropriate for two uncourted and unmarried individuals. Good thing social-appropriateness is the last thing on a gang of outlaws’ minds. 

This newfound relationship is precisely why Dutch trusts you two to pull off your first ever stagecoach robbery alone. Hosea argues with him all damn day, citing that you are far too young and inexperienced still while Dutch explains (fundamentally, because one thing you have observed is how the man is an expert at twisting his words around to sound the opposite of what they really mean) that you will have to learn independence eventually and that Arthur has, in fact, born witness to a few of the hijackings himself. And Arthur would never willingly let anything happen to you. 

It’s decided then, by overruling and by your young, malleable minds who are still slightly afraid of upsetting the one person who holds the power to exile you indefinitely, that you and Arthur will be commandeering a coach transporting a rather rich couple and their valuables. Shouldn’t be any guards other than the shotgunner and driver himself, which only marginally eases Hosea’s anxieties.

You’re becoming nervous yourself, but Arthur will be with you and you so want to prove yourself capable. Chickening out would only wound your case. Besides, nothing like facing your fears, right?

A repeater slung across your back and a revolver holstered on either hip, you and Arthur head out of camp, a place comprised of an abandoned Pueblo settlement positioned on the shore of a lake with some Spanish name you can’t pronounce, sat atop your horses with thick anticipation hanging in the dusty air. 

You nestle yourselves in the shrubbery on either side of the small bridge, tucked just at the edge of a sharp drop down to the rushing waters below. Horses safely hid away in a nearby alcove, you wait nervously for the carriage to come passing through. Bandana pulled up, gambler dipped low, and heart pounding a hole through your chest—you’re just waiting for the suspense to finally kill you.

You hear it faintly over the river and the blood pulsating in your ears and eye Arthur kneeling opposite you, focusing on his slow nod to assuage the unease pricking at your skin. He looks natural there, you think, with his outlaw-esque ensemble perfectly accentuating his rough-and-tough exterior. Tall and full where it counts, he’s Dutch’s enforcer; the surly bodyguard. Although, surly is far down on the list of traits that you would apply to Arthur Morgan. 

You follow his lead as he stands upright, pulling out his sawed-off shotgun to aim directly at the driver who frightfully yanks on the reigns, causing the large shires to rear at the sudden command. You keep your revolver pointed at the shotgunner, cocking the firearm slowly as he attempts to reach for his own.

“Step out of the carriage and don’t try anything,” Arthur states firmly, gesturing for the two men to move as well.

When the supposedly rich couple steps out with their hands raised your heart drops, though Arthur doesn’t seem too perturbed. Probably because he doesn’t understand the significance of the husband’s military uniform. You can’t specifically recall which ranking the badge means, just that it’s pretty damn high and mighty.

Regardless, you keep the gun raised with shaking arms, obeying Arthur’s command to head around back for the lockbox. He has them kneeling on the ground, hands on heads, visibly lined up in case one happens to try to play hero. It’s ornate; expensive-looking, but you line up your revolver just like Dutch taught you and shoot the flimsy lock to pieces. 

Inside is a fairly large wad of cash, a fancy jewelry set, and a slew of various military badges. Just as you reach for the money, however, a piercing shot rings and an object whizzes past your ear far too close for comfort. Basic instinct tells you to duck but your mind, frazzled and terrified, wants Arthur, so you crawl around the coach in a pathetic struggle, dodging a barrage of ill-aimed bullets. 

He’s in a heated struggle with the husband when you reach him, but you falter when you go to help when you notice the driver dead on the ground with a bullet between the eyes and the shotgunner groaning horribly at his wound spilling blood from his stomach. The wife cowers on the ground, fear pouring forth from her eyes so brilliantly you’re momentarily blinded before refocusing at Arthur’s cry of pain. 

You don’t trust yourself to not accidentally shoot him, so you pull your hunting knife from its sheathing and stick the sharpened blade into the husband's neck. He goes down with a  series of gurgles, body jolting as you rip it out with adrenalized strength, hands futilely attempting to stave the profuse bleeding. 

You’re paralyzed—you just killed an innocent man. Innocent so far as you briefly knew him. And it’s not a quick death either; he’s still there spasming on the ground, thick blood coalescing around his head. You’ve seen a lot of nasty things, but bearing witness to your own doing is a reality check your mind can’t quite process. 

Suddenly, a hand is gripping your elbow and yanking you down behind a rock. “Shoot and don’t think,” is all Arthur says, lining up his repeater like he’s merely out hunting with Hosea.

You’re hardly any help at all, shots all off target, though it doesn’t matter much as Arthur has all three riders dead in under a minute. “Must’ve been a military escort or something,” he mumbles, walking around to the back of the stagecoach where you were only moments before, “Damn, everything’s all shot to hell.”

You can only stand there shell-shocked.

“C’mon, we better get outta here before the law shows up. Sound can travel for miles in these gorges.” He’s giving you a concerned look as you both walk towards your horses, though you keep your eyes trained forwards and your movements mechanical. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

You reach camp in the dead of night; the fires have died down to simmering coals and each member has retreated into their own hovels. It’s eerily quiet, save for the yells of scavenger coyotes in the distance, as you and Arthur hitch your horses. 

“I’m gonna go wash off in the lake. You gonna be… okay?” Your eyes snap towards Arthur’s at the question.

Still sat atop the saddle, you stare blankly at him before nodding slowly, undecided and indecisive but not wanting to stall him any longer than what’s embarrassingly necessary. However, as he walks away you shout out with churning anxiousness in the pit of your stomach, “Actually, wait! Can… can I wash with you?” He turns back around with raised eyebrows, uncharacteristic of his demeanor. “I mean, not with you! Just… I don’t wanna be alone.”

You lower your head abashedly, but his quiet “Sure” considerably lessens the anxiety festering in your head. He patiently waits for you to slide off the saddle and holster your weapons, fondly watching as you feed your American Paint an apple with a gentle pat to his flank. 

Your mumbled apologies for taking his time only receive a shake of his head and a dismissive wave of his hand. 

At the water’s edge is where you become uncertain. Do you wait for Arthur to finish and then you go? But you’d hate to make him wait and stand there just because you’re a scared, little girl. And the blood, dried and flaking off with every movement, is only giving you horrid flashbacks of the massacre you’d just committed. 

You look at Arthur questioningly, to which he politely turns his back to you with an air of awkwardness and speaks, “You go ahead. I’ll wait until you’re in the water.”

You shuck your clothes off quickly, knowing he won’t ever peek but instinctually wary all the same. The water is uncomfortably cold and it’s most certainly not the clearest you’ve ever seen, but it does its job well enough. Goosebumps prick your skin, and your heart flips as you hear Arthur beginning to undress. Knowing somehow makes it harder to keep your back to him. 

Backs to each other, you wash in relative silence, your mind equal parts hyper-aware of each of Arthur’s movements and of cleaning the red off of your body. Your mind won’t quiet, it keeps recapitulating  _ everything _ —the bullet missing the back of your head by barely an inch, the fusillade upon you as you piteously crawled along the ground, how  _ easy  _ it was for the knife to sink into the man’s neck at Arthur’s cry of pain... _ Arthur’s cry of pain. _

The realization has you spinning around with a shout, “You’re hurt!”

He halts, hand unconsciously moving to his shoulder as he’d forgotten his wound existed until you’d mentioned so. You stare at the slash, as much of it as you can see before it disappears somewhere down his front. His back, broad and muscled and glistening with water, shines under the moon’s light.

His head turns to the side to acknowledge you. “Just a scratch.”

“Is it?” A soft, concerned question.

“Yes.” A beat. “Are you really okay?”

You haven’t realized you’ve slowly been stepping closer to him until your thumb lightly traces along the shallow cut. His skin is warm and he makes no reaction to your touch, so far as you can tell. 

You sigh. “No…”

“What do you want me to do?” Not angry but genuine.

You don’t know why you wrap your arms around his torso or why you press your chest against his back or why you rest your forehead just on the back of his neck. But you do, and the feeling is comparable to nothing you’ve ever felt before. There’s something so intimate about bare skin contact, you think, listening to Arthur’s heartbeat thrumming deep within.

“Make me forget, please.” It’s ghosted over his spine, your warm breath prickling his skin in such an invigorating way.

He stills at such a confession, at your breasts pressing against him with every breath, at your hands caressing his abdomen. “I ain’t so sure that’s a good idea,” he breathes, eyelids fluttering at everything you’re making him feel without even so much as trying. 

He sees the moon glittering across the calm waters, wonders whether the fullness of such a mysterious object has anything to do with tonight’s events. He’s never much been a man of superstition; not even when he spent his first year or so alone begging on the streets ‘properly’, never pondering why no one ever spared him a second glance, only finding anger and resentment spilling forth from deep-seated issues and staining his already shoddy reputation. 

Things happen coincidentally and it’s up to you to shape their outcome… or so he thought until now.

“Just for tonight,” you whisper against him, and he can  _ feel  _ the movement of your lips grazing his skin.

With a deep, relenting sigh that has him pressing back against your breasts, he turns in your arms. You’ve seen him shirtless before, but they were quick glimpses that had you shying your gaze away out of social politeness and a little something else you can’t quite put your finger on. Now here he is offering himself to you as you’d asked. 

His chest is blanketed by a light dusting of hair that shapes into some semblance of a triangle until stopping at his sternum. He’s not so defined as some of them faux gunslingers you’ve seen pictures of, but you’ve seen just how strong some of that bulk really is. A glance up to his face has your own heating to the touch. He’s staring down at you with a such a strange look, but his eyes shine a different kind of brilliance than the wife from earlier. 

He has a boyish look to him still, with a leaner face and stubble he usually keeps cleanly shaved. His honeyed hair, normally parted on the right, is brushed back with the lake water, and you watch as a drop slides down his temple to his chin.

Time seems to stand still as he brings up his hands up to your jaw, cupping it so delicately as if he’s about to profess his undying love for you in a dramatic kiss. It’s a kiss alright, but it’s slow and tentative, barely a brushing of his lips to yours. They’re softer than you’d imagined, fuller than most men’s, and too hesitant to do much more than slide over yours as sweetly as possible. 

You’re suddenly aware of your acute nakedness, feeling him stiffen along your stomach where you’re pressed tightly together. It makes you feel strange low in your stomach. 

Arthur pulls away then, still cupping your jaw, thumbs rubbing along your cheekbones. “Let’s head inside.”

He pulls you along by your hand, almost comically smaller in his large one, and you can only stare at his faint silhouette as the water lowers with each step. Gently, endearingly, he wraps one of the worn, ripped towels around your shoulders before grabbing his own to hold around his waist. You wonder if real couples do these things, or if they stay as perfectly stoic as social rule states they must even in the privacy of their own quarters. 

He brings you to his room because he actually has his own to occupy, unlike you who shares with Ms. Grimshaw. Silently, you dry off on opposite sides, and you can’t help but touch your lips at every chance, unbelieving Arthur had kissed you like  _ that _ . Not that it was anything special, you suppose, but not like you would know, anyway. 

Wait… “Arthur, I-I’ve never… done… this before,” you blurt, arms hugged to yourself dually to keep the towel up and out of embarrassment. 

His sharp spin and incredulous look on his face makes you entirely apologetic. “Jesus, seriously? Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, your first should be with someone you care about. I think so anyway.”

His face is all screwed up with worry, as if he somehow believes himself unworthy of you.

“But I do care...about you.” You mumble the last part in realization. “Besides, I don’t trust any man more than I do you.”

“You sure?”

“Please…”

Slowly, he steps towards your figure, grasping your towel and pulling your tangible security away from you. It’s a special kind of vulnerability, one magnified by millions now that you no longer have the water to cover your nakedness. But you let him drop it to the floor, his eyes never once leaving yours as he drops his too. 

A kiss to your forehead, nose, cheek; a simple, delicate peck to your lips from which he drags his down your chin to your throat. It tickles slightly, but also nice, in a strange, foreign sort of way. 

You jolt when his hand touches your waist and flashes of  _ those  _ memories invade your every sense, but it’s Arthur here with you and he knows what you’re thinking and he breathes security along your collarbone. “Relax, I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

Your heart won’t stop pounding.

“I never would.”

His words don’t soothe your body’s stiffness or nonvolatile jerks, but they calm your mind; slow down its racing from one bad memory to the next. In another situation, you think he might’ve made you take the lead, to take things at the pace you were most comfortable with. Somehow, though, he  _ knows  _ how to handle you, knows your submission puts you in such a vulnerable position but it lacks decisiveness and assertion and a certain sense of daring—things you’re trusting in him to gain back. Perhaps through bravado, yes, but, he realizes, that’s much of what bravery is. 

“C’mere,” he says, pulling away from you and tugging gently on your finger, “lay down on the bed for me.”

You haven’t looked past his waist once, haven’t look past where the water drew a reflective line across his pelvis. You still don’t even now, though, laying down and watching him move towards you, it’s in your peripheral all the same. It’s big, maybe, because you have nothing else to compare it to. 

The size doesn’t scare you. The entirely justified possibility of Arthur forcing himself upon you is what absolutely terrifies you. Realistically, you know damn well he would never. Sometimes fear is irrational like that. 

He doesn’t crawl on top of you as you’d expected, only kneels, leaning over the edge and grasping your ankles. Insecurely, you close your legs together, entirely inhibited to be so physically open in front of him. But you allow him to push your knees apart, and when he says your name in that reassuring tone it honestly takes everything in you not to cry. 

Looking down at him positioned so intimately between your legs, thumb caressing up and down your inner thigh, the flickering of the lamplight shining in his hazel eyes—you sinfully wish you could take a picture.

That first, tentative touch to your most private parts has you sucking in a stunned gasp; just a faint brushing of his knuckle in a slow, lazy circle. Then his thumb brushes over your nub and something sparks to life inside you. You don’t know what to do with your hands as they lay idly by your side before Arthur tells you to grab his hair. Hesitatingly, you do so, and, though you try to keep your touch light, feeling his finger push inside you has you tensing everywhere. 

He whispers another “relax”, keeping such a gaze with you that causes your face to heat up once again but you couldn’t look away if you tried. The feeling is strange but no6 so unpleasant as to repulse you from his ministrations, and just when it begins to feel something like on the verge of pleasure, he adds a second finger to start the process anew. He does so again with a third and final finger, pushing in and out and stretching the digits when your body ceases its contracting. 

You hold in your breaths and gasps and moans, too embarrassed with yourself to be letting out such obscene sounds, but when his thumb begins to rub your nub again, you can’t help yourself. 

You’re not quite sure how or what happens, but suddenly this feeling intensifies so pleasantly and pleasurably until Arthur stops altogether and you’re left thinking something has just been taken from you. 

“I think you’re ready...if you’re still okay, that is,” he states, leaving the implied question dangling in front of you. 

You want that feeling again, and you want that feeling from Arthur, so you nod, nervous and wanting and a plethora of other contradicting emotions. 

He kisses your thigh at your answer before crawling atop you, leaning on his hands placed on either side of your head, bending down to give you such a tender, loving kiss for someone who is not nor has ever been your significant other.

“It’s gonna hurt, probably, so hold onto to me and know you can tell me to stop at any time and I will, I swear.”

You nod again, taking an anxious swallow and securing your arms around his waist. Adjusting himself appropriately, he pushes in as softly and gently as he can. It’s fairly the same as his fingers, but much, much bigger, and it’s then you understand his reasoning for doing so. It does hurt, just as he’d said, the intense stretching to accommodate his member, but it’s durable.

Until it’s not when a sharp pain suddenly erupts forth causing you to cry out, tears at the corners of your eyes as you hide in the crook of his neck, arms tightening around him. But he’s understanding, wiping those droplets away with his knuckle and ceasing his movement immediately. Words of praise, encouragement, senseless nothings, and you’re telling him to move again because you believe him that the pain won’t last forever. 

Once he’s fully in, hips against hips, he stills again, though you push him onwards, telling him to keep moving. Complying, the movements are slow and shallow and it feels… nice. But something's missing, you think, because it’s not as nice as his fingers and somehow you know that’s wrong.

“Can you speed up?” you ask timidly, shifting your eyes to the side out of more embarrassment. 

Wordlessly, he complies again. Thrusts deeper, quicker, steady in a staccato rhythm. There it is, you think, there, that same feeling, somewhere in the distance, coming closer and closer. Involuntarily, you begin to let those obscene sounds out before Arthur’s shushing you with breathless chuckles, “We still got some people sleeping next door.”

A hypocrite, however, because his pumping becomes capricious and you melt at the sounds escaping his mouth, never having had anything twist your gut so agreeably before. That same feeling, the one from before, the fleeting one from in the water that had escaped your grasp, is back tenfold. Impatient, jutting your hips to make it come faster, and it works, because it does come crashing into you like a tidal wave from those tropical islands you’ve only seen postcards of.

You hold a loud, vulgar moan behind your hand, grasping onto Arthur’s back so tightly, passionately. He pulls out after that first, sensitive thrust, instead using his hand to chase, what you suppose, is that type of feeling. He comes undone in his hand with a deep, throaty growl, eyes closed and a look of bliss upon his otherwise stoic face. 

Laying there in a euphoric kind of contentment, you ignore Arthur for the moment in favor of basking in this relaxation. Although, you take the towel offered to you to clean yourself up before settling back onto your side, this time under the thin covers he keeps. 

Feeling him crawl under beside you, you mumble, “Thank you” with the softest smile upon your face. His response is to reach an arm over and pull you back into his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't claim to be an expert in sex, but I think to say a girl won't orgasm her first time is also as wrong as making it seem like her first time is pain-free.
> 
> Also posted to Tumblr @astrolo-galaxy


End file.
